


What are you fighting for

by quaketheduck



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Identity Reveal, and i got kind of tired of kara not telling lena i guess and this is my own spin on it, pretty much my own take on what will happen in 4x22, the ep isn't out yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 20:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18880849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quaketheduck/pseuds/quaketheduck
Summary: Lex Luthor kidnaps his sister and shares his plans. When Supergirl comes crashing in to save the day, will Lena even want to be saved?





	What are you fighting for

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't really have this beta'd or really proofread so like any mistakes you find, my bad

****

It’s been a week since Kasnia, Lex’s rise to heroics, Nia’s disappearance. Brainy’s been acting weird since then. Kara needs to check up on him. 

She needs to do a lot of things. Need to see if Alex’s is doing okay with the adoption falling through. Need to get lunch with Lena and sit with her while she deals with her brother being lauded as a hero for killing Supergirl while she worked endlessly for the city to be accepted as not evil. Need to... Kara needs to keep her family together. 

It feels harder now, to get up out of bed. It was always a bit hard before, but now it feels like a chore and she doesn’t really know how to deal with that. Not when everyone’s falling apart and all she wants is to save them.

Getting up, she looks at herself in the mirror. And there it is: tired eyes, messy hair, her face dry from the way humidity works on this planet. She wonders what would happen if she pulls at her skin, tugs at it until it falls from her face. Would she feel like her old self then?

She feels her hand twitch at the thought, but she holds tight to the edge of the porcelain sink. She can feel it fracturing and breaking. She tries to stop herself, but nothing feels in control. The edge of the sink breaks away and she’s left holding a piece of it. Chucking it at the trash can, Kara gets ready for the day.

–––

“So. How are you feeling?” Her brother strolls into the room they’re holding her. It’s bare with eggshell colored walls. There are two windows, curtains drawn, far away from where she’s tied up. Her hands and feet are bound to a chair’s, but they didn’t gag her. It’s a small bonus.

Lena doesn’t acknowledge Lex. She refuses to. Not when he’s planning a hostile takeover of her company, on top of kidnapping her.

“Oh come on, Lena. I’m family. You can’t still be mad about the betrayal,” he waves his hand dismissively at her. She knows he’s trying to get a rise out of her. The media may love him now, but she will expose him when she gets out of her.

“Is it because I’m trying to take over the company?” Lex tries to guess. She stares at him, unimpressed. “I was trying to give you an out. You were never much into the business side of things. But I guess if you really want it, I’ll let you keep the company. Oh,” he adds, almost like an afterthought, “and I’ll let you go.”

Lena rolls her eyes and raise an eyebrow at her brother. 

“Is it there something else you want? Why are you upset? Is this because of Supergirl?” He takes a seat across from her.

Lena’s finger twitches. 

“It is, isn’t it?” Lex grins, wide and pleased with himself, like he’s won. And Lena wants nothing more than to wipe the grin off his smug face.

“Ahh, don’t say anything,” Lex continues to carry on his one-sided conversation. “I know everything you’re thinking Lena. I taught you everything you know. Let me remind you though,  _ I _ am the only family you have left. Your so-called friends? They haven’t even bothered to contact you. Hint: they still don’t know you’re missing.”

Lena wonders when he’ll get to the point. She knows why LCorp hasn’t announced she’s missing, they have an image to maintain. By her calculations, she’s only been gone for two days, and it wasn’t enough time to start panicking yet. Even with Lex breathing down her neck trying to convince the board to let him take over.

“That pesky reporter you let hang around you. The one you call your “best friend,”” Lex joylessly uses finger quotes. “I doubt she’s noticed you’re missing. Don’t you wonder what she’s up to? Do you want me to tell you?”

“Leave her out of this,” Lena snaps and glares at Lex. His face still grinning as he looks at her with amusement.

“I wouldn’t dream of anything happening to her,” Lex tells her, his hands held up, palm facing her in a mocking stance. “I just wanted to hear your lovely voice. You know, you sound a bit Irish when you’re angry. It’s cute. Having that piece of your mother with you.”

“What do you want Lex?” Lena sighs, refusing to play whatever game he has up in his head. She’s tired of it all, having to keep up appearances in public for the company, trying to keep her brother away from the company, being kidnapped or threatened, missing Kara.

“I want us to be a family again,” her brother admits. “I missed you, in prison you know,” he says in that matter-of-fact way she finds grating. “And I know you missed me too.”

Lena shakes her head sadly. “No, I don’t.”

“You missed the person I used to be,” he tells her. He knows. He always seems to know the feelings she doesn’t quite say aloud.

“According to you,” Lena tries to keep her voice level, “that person never really existed. You used me. What was it again? I was a little girl and I wanted my big brother’s attention?”

“Oh,” Lex shakes his head, disappointed. “It is just like you to forget I also said you never needed my attention. You are brilliant Lena. When are you going to accept that? 

“You didn’t need me to prove you were a Luthor. You don’t need any those people you call friends. You don’t need that rat, Jimmy, to prove you deserve to be loved. And you certainly don’t need that Kara Danvers, to what? Prove you’re a good person? They’re beneath you Lena.”

Her stomach flips at the mention of her friends. Lex is trying to get at something. She doesn’t quite get it yet. “Why are you telling me any of this? What game are you playing Lex?”

“There’s no game,” he tells her, smug honesty dripping from his words. “There was the hope that you would join me. But, I’ve already won.”

“Isn’t there an idiom somewhere. Something like, “don't count your chickens before they’ve hatched.””

Lex ignores her, “they’re not your friends, Lena. They will only betray you. And Luthors don’t do well with betrayal. I was betrayed once too, by someone I trusted.” 

Lena’s brain rings, screams at her that he betrayed her. 

“And these aliens. They’ll only lie to you to protect their own best interests,” Lex continues on.

“You’re starting to sound like that pawn you funded.” Lena hates, and she hates and hates him, for doing this to her. For Eve, who she trusted. 

“Please,” Lex scoffs. “That man is an idiot. He’s afraid of what he doesn’t know.”

“And you, Lex? You know? Is that it?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I don’t know, and that’s what makes it fun. Doesn’t it, Lena? The not knowing? It makes things kind of exciting.”

“I have no idea what you’re going about now, and I find it more tedious than exciting,” Lena tells him, sick to her stomach. She wants to scream, but she holds it all in. She needs to hear him apologize, or maybe his reasons. She wants to understand, if he knew how much betrayals hurt, why did he betray her?

“Lena,” her brother’s face softens. She holds her breath and waits for him to say something. He shakes his head at her. “The reason I wanted to win. The reason I escaped from jail, plotted all this, and the reason I’m talking to you right now, isn’t because of petty hate for the unknown. Or whatever loss of privilege he feels is owed to him. It’s because I want to protect our legacy. You and I, Lena. We’re the only real Luthors left. 

“And you might hate my methods, but the end result will always be, our family is protected. And our legacy as Luthors, it will not be tarnished.”

And there it is, Lena swallows the lump forming in her throat; he betrayed her to protect the tatters of a family legacy he blew up. “You’re the one that ruined our family legacy, Lex. You killed people and you left me holding the pieces.” Her brother stands up, out of his chair, and wipes away the stray tears that have fallen down her face.

“And you did a magnificent job trying to sway public opinion, Lena. But can’t you see? It wasn’t enough. It’ll never be enough, until you take drastic action. Until the public knows the truth about the real monsters.

“Don’t say anything. Let me finish. I know you did your best. But people, Lena, people are terrible. These, these people are stupid. They will follow anything they think is strong and will protect them–”

“So you become–”

“Don’t interrupt,” Lex tsks at Lena. “Yes, I become their new protector. You know I’m right, deep down. People should learn how to protect themselves. Instead of anointing whoever’s strongest to do it. That’s why I’m manufacturing Lexosuits for everyone once I get control of the company.”

“What? Are you mad?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t think of doing something similar with the Harun-El. Making a serum to make everyone super so they can stand up for themselves, instead of relying on cape crusaders. What’s the difference between what I’m proposing and what you tried to do. Besides the obvious, I succeeded.”

“You,” Lena starts to say, but she stops short. Lex is right. There’s not much difference in what they tried to do. Maybe she’s wrong. She doesn’t want to be like him. “What are you going to do after?” Lena asks. She needs to know. Wonders if she can prevent it, if he’s planning to whisk them away and blow up the world. She would stay. She has to. To protect her own family. The ones she’s found.

“I don’t know,” Lex admits to her. “I’ll be done. I don’t expect you to join me, Lena. I know what you think of me. That I’m a monster. I assure you that I’ve done all this to secure our future. But there’s nothing I can do if you don’t believe me.”

“It’s hard  _ to _ believe you, Lex.” Lena shakes her head. “After all you’ve done–” 

“The people I’ve killed, yes.” He interrupts her. “They were your Adam. Mistakes I’ve made for the greater good.”

“I should’ve never done that,” Lena admits.

“You did what you had to, Lena,” he says, gently, like the brother he was, before all the madness; before her father started drinking and he started talking about family and legacy and what the two of them could accomplish without constraints. “I would never blame you what you did. And you shouldn’t blame yourself either. Even if you don’t believe me now, I wasn’t lying when we were younger when I said I would protect you.” Lex removes her restraints.

Lena holds her breathe when he does. Her mind is in a frenzy, trying to compartmentalize everything he’s told her. She doesn’t want to join him, not really. But she wonders about the differences between them.

A wall explodes next to her, forming a cloud of dust and plaster. Lex uses his body to shield her from the explosion. In her periphery, Lena sees the blurry figure of Supergirl. Her heart lurches, she thought Supergirl had died. She saw Lex carry her body away, she should have known it was all a show.

Before she can accuse Lex of lying, she sees him rip his suit off revealing the Lexosuit he wore underneath. 

They fight in front of her. Blurs of red and blue clash with green and purple, over and over. The two burst out of the apartment in colors. There’s a ringing in her ears, and Lena’s certain she’s bleeding from somewhere. Probably her head, from the way it throbs. She scrambles to the edge of the apartment, where the wall used to be. 

Her eyes try to track the Super and her brother as they fight over the skies of National City. Lex flies around Supergirl and shoots rays of green at her while she dodges and fires her laser beam. They look almost evenly matched, flying and throwing large debris at each other, occasionally using whatever power they have to try to outgun each other.

As they fly further away from the apartment building, Lena tips her body further off the edge to try to find them. Her stomach dips when she realizes she’s falling. She braces herself for impact.

There’s an irony to this, she thinks to herself. When she was younger, first coming to live with the Luthors, she remembers refusing to go on a plane because she thought that the plane would crash, and she would die in it. It’s the reason she hates flying in planes, helicopters were only slightly more tolerable. 

Something about falling, encased in a ton of metal that could crush her, scares Lena more than most other things, but right now. Falling all by herself, by accident. It makes her want to laugh at how stupid she was being about planes.

Solid arms wrap around her and the falling stops gradually.

“Why the heck are you laughing? Did you know you were almost going to die?!”

Lena smiles. The voice sounds like Kara. When she opens her eyes, she finds Supergirl peering down at her. She frowns, unable to form words.

Supergirl’s grip around her tightens. Concern colored her bright blue eyes.

“My brother,” Lena says weakly, pointing behind Supergirl.

“Give her to me,” Lex demands.

Supergirl doesn’t look away from her, and it’s distracting. Her face right now looks so similar to someone else’s, and Lena doesn’t have time to unpack why. Her brother’s voice rings out. “Hand my sister over to me!”

“She’s not yours!” Supergirl yells back at him. The hero looks down at Lena once more with the same look of concern from earlier. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” she tells her, and flies Lena back up to the apartment she fell from.

––– 

Lex hates her. Watching the Super get her hands all over Lena, like she actually cared for his sister. He’s angry at Lena too, unable to sate that curiosity of hers. To be so stupid, as to accidentally fall from a building. He needs to teach her a lesson after he finally defeats Supergirl. But in time, he still needs to get her to trust in him again.

There are times, no matter how intelligent Lena is, she still needs him to make her see reason. In the end, he knows Lena will come to see the truth.

It’s a shame Clark isn’t here to see his beloved cousin lose to him again. Lex flies after Supergirl, tackling her into the floor of the apartment once she lets go of his sister. Powering up his suit, he hits the hero with a concentrated blast of kryptonite.

––– 

Supergirl’s eyes don’t leave her. Even when she gently sets Lena down, with such care, like she’ll break, her eyes don’t leave her. They’re bright and they look watery. Lex tackles Supergirl into the floor. Lena watches in horror as the suit powers up to hit Supergirl.

–––

Kara can’t look away from Lena. She can’t have Lena disappear again. Alex always hates it when she treats her like a doll, fragile and easily broken. It doesn’t help that Lena sometimes looks like a porcelain doll. Once she sets Lena down, she continues to look at her. Trying to make sure Lena knows she’s safe.

Kara feels herself get tackled. Her body slams into the floor and she can feel the way the tiles are broken and shattered. She feels something warm radiating from Lex’s suit. She wants to find Lena’s eyes again. She wants to tell Lena she’s sorry for not getting here earlier. She doesn’t know what Lex had told her, but she wants to find out.

She watches with wide eyes as Lena runs toward them and throws her body on Lex, grabbing his large metal shoulder and using some move Kara’s sure she’s only seen in movies. The blast hits a chair and turns it ash. Kara doesn’t know where Lena is, and for a few moments, she begins to panic. She sees Lex getting up and using her laser beam, she hits Lex’s torso, catching him off guard. She punches the center of his suit and clocks him in the jaw.

She punches him again and again, until bruises are forming and she can see him bleed. A question burns at the tip of her tongue. 

“Where is she?” Kara rips the kryptonite center away from the suit, depowering it. Green veins pulse from her hands where she’s touching the rock.

“I’m here,” Lena replies. Kara throws the rock as far as she can, before she follows the sound of Lena’s voice, finding her hanging on the side of the apartment building.

She pulls Lena up and moves her hand over her friend’s body, checking for any sign of possible injury.

“I’m fine,” Lena pushes her away. “Lex.”

Kara feels her strength being seeped away. Lex Luthor looms over her holding kryptonite in his hands.

“Come Lena,” he demands. “I’ll forgive you for trying to save her, but. Never. Never do that again.”

“I don’t know why you think I’m going to help you.” Kara hears Lena yell back at Lex.

“Because we’re the same,” he tells Lena, bringing the glowing green rock closer to her. She feels the veins growing from where Lex is advancing.

“On the news, it showed you killing Supergirl.”

“It was fake,” Lex says.

“You killed Red Daughter,” Kara gasps. Lena looks at her in confusion. “She trusted you and you killed her.”

“You don’t know anything!” Lex screams at her, gripping the kryptonite and bringing it closer to her.

Lena moves closer to her, using her own body to block Kara from the kryptonite.

“Lena. I’m your family. And as your family. I feel like you deserve the truth about who Supergirl is.”

Kara shakes her head. She wants to beg Lena to go, to not listen to Lex, to run away from here. Lena moves closer to Kara. 

“I think I already know,” she says.

“Oh? Do you now?”

“She’s a hero Lex.”

“So you don’t want to know who she is underneath all that?” Lex asks. Kara holds her breath and waits for Lena’s answer. She was planning on telling her anyways, but she needs to know what Lena says now.

“I would like to hear it from her,” Lena tells her brother. “It’s not your secret to tell Lex.”

“Fine,” Lex smirks at Kara, his crazed eyes boring into her. “Why don’t you tell my dear sister who you really are, Miss. Danvers.”

Kara finds herself cursing, internally as she hears Lena’s sharp intake of breath. 

“Whoops,” Lex winks at Kara. “My B.”

“I’ve wanted to tell you,” Kara tries to explain. She hopes Lena will hear her out. There are a million things she wants to tell Lena. A million and one and nothing comes out. Lena is frozen in front of her, still using her body as a shield for Kara, and Kara feels useless.

“I’m so so sorry,” Kara apologizes. It’s all she can say for now. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She’s drowning and afraid. And any moment, if Lena chooses to join her brother. Kara doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know if she can handle that heartbreak. She doesn’t know Lena is handling hers.

She’s the one. The selfish one thinking about herself and her own misery at being found out. Forgetting for a second about Lena’s own heartbreak. The constant string of lies and betrayals, Lena’s had to endure from her family and friends. And Kara added on to that heartbreak.

“I forgive you,” Lena tells to her. “I forgive her,” she tells Lex. Kara stops and looks at Lena. Really looks at her, past the need to protect the girl. She takes in the way Lena’s jaw is set in determination, the way her eyes are burning as she stares at Lex. “She’s the first person, who’s ever apologized for betraying me. Unlike you, big brother,” Lena spits out the words like poison. She moves and becomes taller. Her shoulders are broad and she stands straight and angry and pokes her brother in the chest. “I wanted you to apologize.”

Lex frowns, and then he lets out a laugh. He keeps laughing and laughing, and Kara is sure he’s gone mad a second time. 

“Are you sure you want to do this, Lena? Pick the lying friend over your own blood?”

“What do you fight for, Supergirl?” Lena asks her suddenly.

Kara is frozen. She doesn’t understand the question, but it seems important to Lena.

“I’m the last member of your family, Lena,” Lex is saying. “I will never abandon you, no matter what you’ve done. And we both know that you’ve done many things. Things that this reporter wouldn’t be able to understand. She never trusted you.”

Lena ignores her brother and asks Kara again. “What are you fighting for?”

Kara wants to know what Lex is talking about. What wouldn’t she be able to understand. Her legs are shaky from the kryptonite. She wants to fall down, wants to stay in bed for centuries. She can feel her body slump a little.

“I’m fighting,” Kara breathes the words out, slightly ragged and tired. “I’m fighting for my family.” She tries to smile at Lena, to let her know she includes her in her family, but the smile comes out as a grimace as the pain of the kryptonite overtakes her system.

“So am I.” She hears Lena tell her.

–––

Lex coughs as he feels himself fall off the building. Parts of him still can’t believe Lena tackled him off. But it feels oddly fitting. He’s glad it’s her that killed him. It still kind of sucks that his suit has no more power and she has to die with him, but you can’t have everything you want.

“I’m sorry, Lex.” He hears his sister tell him. He looks at her as they’re falling and thinks back to a time when things were maybe simpler. 

He was ten, and she was four. They had met for the first time. His mom, fretting over not being told they were adopting some child. His dad, looking more nervous than he had ever seen him, before and after, he now realizes.

“I must say, I kind of say this coming.” 

“I didn’t want to kill you.”

“You kind of did,” he grins at his sister. “It’s okay though. I think I’ve made my peace with this. You choosing your friend over me.”

“I didn’t choose her over you,” his sister tries to tell him.

He wants to tell her it’s okay. That she chose family. And he knows he was being kind of a shitty brother. There was something about dying that makes him overly sentimental and he hates it. He hates thinking like this.

As long as Lena keeps experimenting with the Harun-El, then he hasn’t failed. If she continues to use it to make new Supers, ones that could fight and make their legacy strong, then it will be alright.

“Ah look,” he points with his chin at the sky. “You’re going to get saved.”

He watches Supergirl save his sister, and thinks to himself, this is fitting.

–––

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Kara scoops Lena up into her arms. She doesn’t have time to check for injuries, all she wants to do is fly Lena away from her to a quiet place where she can explain better and apologize in full, and grovel for forgiveness if she has to.

“Take me down to him,” Lena tells her. She shifts in Kara’s arms like she’s about to jump off and Kara tightens her grip, shaking her head.

“No,” she firmly tells Lena.

“Please,” Lena looks at her with tears forming in the edges of her green eyes. “Please,” she says again.

Kara’s heart breaks and she relents. She flies Lena lower until they touch the ground where Lex’s body made impact with the ground.

“There’s no more Harun-El,” Lena says, staring at her brother’s broken body. “Ben Lockwood took it all and there’s no time to make more.”

“Do you want to make more?” Kara knows she shouldn’t ask. She doesn’t know how to comfort Lena in times like these, when she thinks Lena’s made the right choice, but it comes at the cost of a life. It’s selfish, she thinks to herself, feeling oddly special when Lena takes a life to save hers.

“I wish I could save my brother,” Lena says closing her brother’s eyes, “but I don’t think I want to make any more. You’ll be happy to hear, I’m done with kryptonite experiments.”

Kara finds herself frowning. “I’m not happy when you’re sad.”

“We have a lot to talk about,” Lena says lightly, changing the topic.

“We do,” Kara replies. She watches Lena silently cry over Lex Luthor and she hates herself for not killing him. 

The feeling burns away at her chest until she feels Lena tugging at her hand. She gently pulls Lena up, and looks at her. Her makeup is smudged. Her hair is wild from falling down a building twice. Her eyes are swollen from crying. And Kara still thinks Lena is the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen.

“Will you take me home?” Lena asks her.

Kara nods and she feels lighter. She calls Alex to pick up Lex’s body after she clears it with Lena. Tomorrow, they would need to talk. Tomorrow, she was going to drag herself out of bed, buy as many donuts as she can carry and go over to Lena’s house to talk. And she was going to explain herself properly.

Right now, she scoops Lena up into her arms and flies her home. 


End file.
